Further read the Drip SA case study below and answer the following question:

You part of the senior marketing team at Drip SA. Discuss any SEVEN OF THE ELEVEN POSITIONING STRATEGIES that Drip SA brand might consider making use of, providing application in terms of how the Drip SA could implement each of the strategies (14 marks for the practical application)

CASE STUDY

DRIP SA - FOOTWEAR

About Drip SA

Mr Lekau Sehoana is a South African entrepreneur, Chief Executive Officer at Drip Footwear and a moPedi man who was born in Limpopo province, but grew up in an informal settlement of Ivory Park.

When Mr Sehoana was in grade 8 in 2003, he did not have shoes to wear to a school function, and he was given an old torn pair of sneakers. Mr Sehoana removed the torn parts and redesigned the sneakers using denim and polyurethane materials. As a result of the newly redesigned sneakers, the sneakers became a hit and people in the community loved them. Later, people started ordering the sneakers, and this was his entry into the shoe business, which allowed him to replace pain with profit for the next 5 years of his high school years. Since then, Mr Sehoana has been at the forefront of redesigning, designing and servicing shoes for over 13 years.

Drip SA philosophy

Drip SA's slogan is "The Township Dream", which means that even if we grow big, we will never forget what made us. Drip SA created a brand that has become an international standard from a shack. This should remind people that all dreams are valid and that they can create a quality brand that can compete at an international level with multibillion dollar markets controlled and owned by international companies.

The launching of Drip SA

Mr Sehoana conducted research and discovered that the South African market loves sneakers and that South Africans love colourful things. Therefore, in 2019, Mr Sehoana decided to launch his own brand called Drip. He launched the company and managed to sell 600 pink pairs of sneakers over a period of 6 weeks. The idea behind the branding of the name "Drip" for the footwear business comes from the modern day usage of words. It took Mr Sehoana up to a year to come up with a name for the brand. The word "drip" was given a different, "cooler" meaning. Normally drip refers to drops 2 of liquid. However, in urban street culture, it refers to looking pleasant, umswenko, swag, ukotini, having a high sense of fashion, and trendy.

DRIP SA has three essential main elements:

• It all began in a Shack.
• It began using recycled material (old shoe soles and used denims)
• It began because Lekau did not have shoes to wear to a school function.

These three essential elements are mainstream and a commercial market that Drip SA does not want to lose as they made up the brand.

Drip SA stores

To date Drip SA has store branches in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Mall of Tembisa, Polokwane, Giyani and Thohoyandou, and people can also place orders online. Mr Sehoana and his team aim at opening more stores to grow the brand further. They further plan to grow the economy of township areas to create employment, retain children at school, host charity events and donate school shoes to less fortunate learners.

Marketing tools

Drip SA provides advice, ideas and information about their sneakers, and giveaways are communicated to customers by means of these contemporary marketing communication tools. Drip SA makes use of the following social media platforms as marketing tools:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Attend interviews on YouTube

Attend interviews on TV and radio

Pricing

Drip SA was careful with their prices because if they had priced their sneakers too low, the sneakers would have come across as inferior and cheap. On the other hand, if they priced their sneakers too high, it would be compared to worldwide luxurious brands such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, New Balance, Vans, etc. So, Drip SA decided to position itself by pricing their sneakers between R700 - R1100.

Adapted from: Websites: Drip SA profile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq0T5ZQNa08